Rastrum in Porta
by Frith
Summary: What's a rake doing in Lewis's workshop? It's just not fantastic enough to be there. Written for Qoheleth's Malachy O'More challenge.


"Um . . . What is it?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a rake."

"Yeah, but . . . What else?"

In the workshop of Cornelius "Lewis" Robinson something as innocuous as a rake just did not fit in. That room, a veritable, tangled web of complex whatchamawhozits, intricate thingamajigs, and assorted gizmos, had no place for the everyday. And yet, propped against Lewis's doorjamb, stood a seemingly ordinary, completely unremarkable, astonishingly unexceptional gardening implement.

Franny, still sporting pigtails despite her advancing years, took it from Goob's pudgy hands and examined it with a keen eye.

Long wooden handle? Nothing out of place there. Running a finger along it, she came upon a stray splinter, but, other than that. . . .

Weird wire, prong-y things? Nope. Perfectly normal. She flicked one with her finger and noticed it resonated in the pitch of F-sharp. With a shrug and one last thoughtful scrutiny of the structure, Franny shoved it back into Goob's hands.

"It's a rake alright. It told you so."

Goob took it, but looked unconvinced, "I roomed with Lewis for a long time, and if I know anything, it's that if this thing is a rake now, it won't be a rake for long. One time, I gave him a baseball for Christmas and he turned it into a super sonic, um . . . _thing_. I don't know what exactly. It exploded before I got a chance to see what it did. I think maybe it was supposed to explode."

Franny quirked her eyebrow, "He made a bomb out of a baseball?"

"He sure made a lot of bombs, then. Stuff exploded a lot. He blew up my pillow once. But it was okay, 'cause I wasn't really using it . . . ," Goob broke off then, remembering with some pain the sleepless nights spent shutting his eyes against the light on Lewis's workbench. Since Lewis's adoption, however, Goob could proudly say he got a full eight hours a night and forty winks. His chubby face shone bright without the garish black circles under his eyes: two years of unspoiled R.E.M cycles had erased them completely.

Sighing, Franny took the rake again and pondered its properties. "Where is Lewis anyway?" she asked absently, turning the rake this way and that. Perhaps it shape-shifted: controlled by either a remote or thought. Focusing her brain waves, Franny willed the rake into a cello.

Nothing happened. Remote then? There wasn't one close by. Perhaps, then, the rake was actually a solid hologram. The round thing over there could be the generator. . . .

"He told me to wait here. So that's what I did. I waited. I hit a homerun today. It went straight out of the park. I'm getting really good at batting. Normally - _normally_ - I'm only good at catching but today I hit good. I mean well. Er, I think. My English teacher says I need to use better grammar. I mean gooder grammar. But, what's the point? I mean, it's not like grammar's important in baseball. Like I told her, I'm going to play that sport forever. It's my life's ambition. That's what you call your destiny: your life's ambition. Like your life's ambition is to make frogs do things."

Franny's attention snapped from testing the rake's tangibility to Goob. "I do not make frogs do _things_," she spat and then - a little warmly - said, "I teach frogs how to make glorious music. Frogs are extremely musically gifted creatures."

Goob waved his hand. "All frogs do is croak."

"You obviously haven't heard my frogs then. Anyway, what's so great about baseball? It's not musical at all," she huffed.

"Well, duh! That's what's good about it."

Goob paled.

"_What!?" _Franny's eyes narrowed.

"I mean -"

"WHAT!?"

"That is -"

"Boy, the next words out of your mouth better be an apology! I'm warning you!" Suddenly, in a burst of inspiration, Franny found a purpose for the rake. She raised it menacingly, shoving the pronged end at Goob.

"I'm sorry!" He squeaked, backing away in terror.

"Good." Franny smiled and lowered the rake. "Hey! I think I hear Lewis."

With a brilliant smile, she skipped to the door and peered down the stairway.

Breathing, Goob slumped against the wall and drew his hand across his forehead. Now that Franny had lowered her weapon and had ventured out of earshot, Goob allowed himself to murmur, "From zero to crazy in two seconds." However, he wisely kept this to an inaudible whisper.

"What's with all the yelling?" Lewis's voice echoed from downstairs. His footsteps approached.

"Oh, nothing," Franny chirped sweetly, "Goob just forgot the number one rule."

Entering the room, he grinned fondly at his girlfriend. "You're always right?"

"Yup!" and she pecked the young inventor on the cheek, turning him scarlet.

"I'm going to puke," Goob groaned and, in a flash, Franny turned on him with rake raised once more.

With a yelp, Goob scampered behind Lewis.

However, Lewis assuaged his girlfriend with a simple question, "Where'd that rake come from?"

"Uh? It was right here. We thought it was one of your inventions," Franny said, serene and no longer bent on Goob's destruction.

"Though I'm flattered, I can't take credit for inventing the rake." Lewis chuckled.

"Well, obviously. We thought maybe you'd turned it into something else." With one last glance at its commonplace form, Franny handed the rake to Lewis. She dusted her hands, as though glad to be rid of the mystery, and folded her arms in expectation of the solution.

"Nope. It's just a rake."

Anticlimax hit hard. For a moment, Franny and Goob wore expressions akin to the goldfish.

"Not even a bomb?" Goob piped up from behind his friend's back, eyes wide.

"What? No! I don't build weapons."

"Not exactly true," Goob looked sideways at Franny. She glared.

'Um, so are we going to the movies or not?" Lewis said, breaking the tension. He felt rather silly standing there, holding a rake, as his two friends gaped at him.

"You're sure it's just a rake?" Raising an eyebrow, his girlfriend eyed him suspiciously.

"_Yes_. My dad probably put it here to remind me to rake the lawn. Can we go now?"

"Of course!" Franny declared, grasping the rake from Lewis and tossing it over her shoulder.

However, sending anything sailing in a workshop full of unstable prototypes never yields good results. With terrifying aim, the handle struck the "on" switch of Lewis's latest development: The Self-Washing Dish. A mesh of untested accouterments, the mechanical dish threw a frightening fit, flashing green, then red, then started to buzz. With a shrill whistle, the dish leaped up into the air and--

Exploded.

"Okay, so I might have been a little wrong about throwing the rake."

"Told you it was a bomb."

* * *

Thanks for reading!

This is a response to Qoheleth's Malachy O'More challange. Check out his profile if you're interested.

I was assigned the latin phrase "Rastrum in porta" or "The rake at the door." The 88th on Malachy's list, it refers to Pope Innocent XII. Of course, Pope Innocent was not a bomb and, as far as I can determine, never exploded.


End file.
